Last Call For The Lone Star

It seems not even the Texas GOP is willing to tolerate the party advocating open rebellion against the United States government.

State GOP leaders, in a predictable but closely watched vote, have defeated a proposal to ask Texas voters whether they favor secession.

In a voice vote Saturday afternoon, the State Republican Executive Committee rejected a measure that would have put the issue on the March 1 primary ballot. The ballot language would have been non-binding, amounting to a formal survey of voters on whether they would like to see Texas declare its independence from the United States.

While the proposal's defeat was expected, the measure had sparked some heated debate on the 60-member executive committee, the governing body of the Republican Party of Texas. Seeking to avoid a protracted fight, the executive committee voted earlier Saturday afternoon to cap discussion of the issue at 30 minutes then put it to an up-or-down vote.

Tanya Robertson, the SREC member who introduced the proposal, argued at the executive committee meeting in Austin that the measure would have been "harmless," allowing voters to register an "opinion only." She also suggested the ballot language would have helped "get out the vote" among some Texas Republicans who have been sitting out recent elections.

"The goal of these is to take a thermometer of how Texans feels about an issue, and what better issue for Texans to do that with?" she asked.

Opponents of the proposal argued it would have been an unproductive way for Texans to register their dissatisfaction with the federal government, however strongly they feel. One of the opponents, SREC member Mike Goldman, said he was "sorry we are even having the conversation" about secession.

The pro-secession measure was sent to the full body on Friday after approval by its Resolutions Committee. The ballot language before the executive committee Saturday afternoon read, "If the Federal Government continues to disregard the Constitution and the sovereignty of the State of Texas, the State of Texas should reassert its prior status as an independent nation."

I mean, you guys tried this 150 years ago.  Didn't work out so well for you. We've finally found a line that the Texas GOP is afraid to cross.

I wonder how that will play out with the base.

Doing It On Purpose

I swear that Salon.com is trying to throw the election and it has been for a while now.  First it was this drivel about how Hillary is worthless because selecting Supreme Court justices doesn't matter, then it was why you shouldn't vote for Hillary even if she's the Democratic nominee, then it was why Hillary Clinton is basically Dick Cheney, and today we have why we should let the Republicans burn the country down in order to issue in a liberal paradise.

Rowing in behind Clinton only justifies the establishment logic — “just feed the lefties a few scraps in the primary, wax poetic about the Republican bogeyman in the general, and they’ll shut up.” Progressives would be giving something quite important — their votes — for a party that hides behind fear-based arguments to maintain intimate ties with Wall Street while ignoring its supposed base.

But consider this: What if we didn’t vote, and Hillary lost as a result? Like it or not, that makes a profound statement. It would likely force the Democratic party to move left on economic issues and, fearing another schism, throw its weight behind a far more progressive candidate in 2020. Bernie Sanders himself says that we need a political revolution to enact real change, and if progressives plan to build a lasting movement in America, it has to start with making our voices heard on a national scale. Sending a message to the party that we won’t be placated by politicians who stand in the regressive center is one hell of an opening salvo.

If progressives like myself still believed that the party could right the ship of state without our intervention, perhaps this would be a very different discussion. But that’s not happening — since Bill Clinton, Democrats in Washington have slipped to the right one heartbreaking concession at a time, and the voters are the only ones who can stop that inertia. If we want the party to move left, we have to turn the ponderous ship around and drag it there ourselves.

There’s an analogy here to the far-right conservative movement, which has become so influential in the Republican party that establishment candidates are finding no traction in their own circus of a primary contest. Unlike progressives, the conservative far right has realized the extent of its power — they had a certain psychological advantage in the early days, propelled as they were by religious fervor — and for Sanders supporters to do the same, it’s imperative that we don’t capitulate to the Democratic party’s big money wing. If we do, we’ll never be taken seriously.

We have to lose in order to win!

Well see, we tried that in 2010 and 2014 and all that did was give even more of the country to the actual Tea Party at both the federal and state level.  Giving them the White House and letting the GOP scorch the country may push the Democrats to the left, sure.

It'll also destroy the place in the meantime.

See, here's what I don't get, do you know how the Tea Party keeps winning?

They actually vote.  Our side's brilliant idea is to not vote.

If you can't see where the problem is, then you're even more lost than I thought.  And I'm beginning to think Salon is doing this on purpose by having a bunch of white Bernie Bros talk America into   Feeling The Berning Country.

Anyone who advocates not voting is wrong, period.

Sunday Long Read: A Debt Never Repaid

At the NY Times Magazine, Eula Biss reflects on the price of white privilege in America and the cost on our society.

Whiteness is not a kinship or a culture. White people are no more closely related to one another, genetically, than we are to black people. American definitions of race allow for a white woman to give birth to black children, which should serve as a reminder that white people are not a family. What binds us is that we share a system of social advantages that can be traced back to the advent of slavery in the colonies that became the United States. ‘‘There is, in fact, no white community,’’ as Baldwin writes. Whiteness is not who you are. Which is why it is entirely possible to despise whiteness without disliking yourself.

When he was 4, my son brought home a library book about the slaves who built the White House. I didn’t tell him that slaves once accounted for more wealth than all the industry in this country combined, or that slaves were, as Ta-Nehisi Coates writes, ‘‘the down payment’’ on this country’s independence, or that freed slaves became, after the Civil War, ‘‘this country’s second mortgage.’’ Nonetheless, my overview of slavery and Jim Crow left my son worried about what it meant to be white, what legacy he had inherited. ‘‘I don’t want to be on this team,’’ he said, with his head in his hands. ‘‘You might be stuck on this team,’’ I told him, ‘‘but you don’t have to play by its rules.’’

Even as I said this, I knew that he would be encouraged, at every juncture in his life, to believe wholeheartedly in the power of his own hard work and deservedness, to ignore inequity, to accept that his sense of security mattered more than other people’s freedom and to agree, against all evidence, that a system that afforded him better housing, better education, better work and better pay than other people was inherently fair.

My son’s first week in kindergarten was devoted entirely to learning rules. At his school, obedience is rewarded with fake money that can be used, at the end of the week, to buy worthless toys that break immediately. Welcome to capitalism, I thought when I learned of this system, which produced, that week, a yo-yo that remained stuck at the bottom of its string. The principal asked all the parents to submit a signed form acknowledging that they had discussed the Code of Conduct with their children, but I didn’t sign the form. Instead, my son and I discussed the civil rights movement, and I reminded him that not all rules are good rules and that unjust rules must be broken. This was, I now see, a somewhat unhinged response to the first week of kindergarten. I know that schools need rules, and I am a teacher who makes rules, but I still want my son to know the difference between compliance and complicity.

I think Biss is too hard on herself, taking in too much of a burden on her shoulders.  We won't solve white privilege in this country in my lifetime, any more than we will gun violence or income inequality or any other of the massive social problems we have, because it's taken so long just to get to the point where we acknowledge that white privilege exists.

Baby steps indeed, but expecting us to get to a state where it doesn't matter will take a society far better than the one we have now.

The President Speaks

President Obama will address the nation from the Oval Office tonight, something he has only done twice before.

President Barack Obama on Sunday night will deliver a rare Oval Office address about terror threats in the aftermath of the San Bernardino, California, shootings that claimed 14 lives. CNN and other networks will broadcast it live at 8 p.m. ET.

The White House says the president will provide an update on the investigation. Federal authorities have said the attacks are being investigated as an act of terrorism.

"The President will also discuss the broader threat of terrorism, including the nature of the threat, how it has evolved, and how we will defeat it," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement. "He will reiterate his firm conviction that ISIL will be destroyed and that the United States must draw upon our values -- our unwavering commitment to justice, equality and freedom -- to prevail over terrorist groups that use violence to advance a destructive ideology."

ISIL on Saturday hailed the San Bernardino shooters as "supporters" of the terror group -- a message that came after U.S. investigators said they suspect one of the shooters professed loyalty to the Islamist network, CNN reports.

Republicans, on the presidential campaign trail and in Congress, have in recent days lambasted President Obama over his response to the San Bernardino killings. They've been particularly withering about comments by the president supporting gun control measures. In his Saturday radio address Obama said it's "insane" that people on the "no-fly" list are permitted to buy guns.

If you are hoping that the President will announce executive actions on gun control, frankly they'd never be enforced as they would immediately be challenged by Republicans in court and delayed until the end of his term.  At this point I think it's far more likely that we'll get plans for increased military action in Syria to deal with ISIS.

We'll see.

Last Call For Gunmerica TV

And finally today, while we're talking about how the left completely lost the gun control argument, let's not forget the real reason is because the NRA is another corporate lobby and represents an industry that is doing the best it has ever done.

As the fractious debate over American gun laws continues, two people in California are preparing to launch the country’s first all-gun home shopping television channel.

Created by Doug Bornstein and Valerie Castle—both of whom previously worked for home shopping networks—the new channel, named GunTV, is scheduled to launch on January 20, during the gun industry’s annual multi-day SHOT Show in Las Vegas. It will go live via national satellite and cable TV providers and eventually air 24 hours a day.

Neither founder was able to provide comment in time for publication.

GunTV, also known as GTV Live Shopping, will broadcast gun-related programming and sell firearms, ammunition and accessories. "The ease and convenience of purchasing firearms will be as simple as consumers calling a toll-free number and placing their order," GunTV says in a promotional video. The channel will also air safety, training and instructional content every hour, according to its website, as well as commercials from manufacturers.

Here’s how the purchasing process works: The channel will electronically deliver orders to Sports South, one of the largest distributors of sporting goods in the U.S. The distributor will then ship the firearms to a local gun store, where a viewer can pick it up, according to The Desert Sun, a newspaper in Palm Springs, California. To comply with gun regulations, customers likely will have to pass background checks before the federally licensed dealers sell them firearms. Federal law requires background checks at licensed dealers, so consumers can purchase guns without checks online and at firearm shows.

Sports South, which is based in Louisiana, will provide GunTV customers with access to more than 475 product lines and outdoor sporting goods.

The United States has an average of 89 firearms for every 100 residents, according to a promotional video from GunTV.

Initially, the channel will air six hours of daily programming, mostly shopping, starting at 1 a.m., seven nights a week. The founders hope to expand it to a 24/7 lineup during 2016, The Desert Sun reported.

The paranoid business has never been better.  GunTV: It's the most American thing imaginable!

The Gunmerican Epidemic

The NY Times, for the first time in 95 years, has put the paper's editorial board opinion on the paper's front page, blasting the country's deadly gun fetish and the people who enable it.

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.

Opponents of gun control are saying, as they do after every killing, that no law can unfailingly forestall a specific criminal. That is true. They are talking, many with sincerity, about the constitutional challenges to effective gun regulation. Those challenges exist. They point out that determined killers obtained weapons illegally in places like France, England and Norway that have strict gun laws. Yes, they did.

But at least those countries are trying. The United States is not. Worse, politicians abet would-be killers by creating gun markets for them, and voters allow those politicians to keep their jobs. It is past time to stop talking about halting the spread of firearms, and instead to reduce their number drastically — eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition.

It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.

Certain kinds of weapons, like the slightly modified combat rifles used in California, and certain kinds of ammunition, must be outlawed for civilian ownership. It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.

As I said, not messing around.  It's something that has needed to be said by a major American media outlet for a very long time, and yet as we approach 2016, nothing will have changed.  It will most likely not change in my lifetime, not unless the voting pattern and turnout of tens of millions of Americans change.

And our system is designed to make sure that will never happen.

If Newtown, if Aurora, if Charleston, if now Colorado Springs and San Bernardino don't motivate voters to throw out the NRA lobby, then nothing will.

It is screaming into the abyss, and the abyss will kill 30-35,000 every year and more and we will call it the price of freedom, the blood cost that must water the Tree of Liberty.  It was nice of the editorial board to try.  You're more likely to see this Congress pass laws stripping the paper of its editorial power than you are ridding the country of these weapons of war and death.

Gunmerica indeed.

This will be the first and only time that this blog says this, probably in 95 years, but Jonah Goldberg's conclusion is correct:

Similarly, while very, very, very few people outside the Times’ offices — and media nerds like me — could care less about what is essentially a P.R. gimmick, the Times thinks this is a Very Big Deal. For the staid grey lady this amounts to shouting “Unleash the Kraken!” It shows you how desperate and frustrated the editors — and liberals generally — are with the fact that this country doesn’t agree with them on guns. It also shows that the “national conversation” most Americans want has more to do with Islamist terrorism and less to do with the alleged “gun show loophole.” This alone doesn’t make The Times’ views or their arguments illegitimate or invalid. But it does illustrate how unpersuasive they are to much of the public.

The same can be said for the disgustingly hypocritical new fad of calling Wayne LaPierre a “terrorist.” This from the same crowd who insisted Sarah Palin had blood on her hands because of some cross-hairs on a congressional district map and that Michelle Bachmann should be put in the dock for her “eliminationist rhetoric.” I have no problem with criticizing LaPierre, but the double standard is just so appalling. I mean, seriously, to Hell with these people.

What’s true for lawyers is also true for newspapers: When you’re shouting and pounding the table, it’s probably because you’re losing the argument.

And in fact the gun control argument in this country has been lost.  It was never going to be won without blood. This applies to either side, and one side is proudly willing to accept tens of thousands of casualties in order to win. Our side has accepted the butcher's bill by default.

It's over, folks.  Gunmericans have won.  And it's been that way for decades.

All I Want For Christmas Is Pew (Pew Pew)

Here in America we don't stigmatize our mentally ill, we elect them to state legislatures.

'Tis the season — even for firearms. 

For Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore's (R) 2015 family Christmas card, which she posted on Facebook on Monday, her family was each outfitted with a gun. If it wasn't immediately obvious, Fiore is a staunch defender of Second Amendment rights.

"It's up to Americans to protect America. We're just your ordinary American family. -With love & liberty, Michele," her message read. Here's the card:

You remember Michele Fiore, right?  The nice Republican lady who backed Cliven Bundy against the federal government and tore poor Chris Hayes a new asshole on national TV, and later went to speak at a rally for the nice people who want to take up armed resistance against America?

Yeah, that Michele Fiore.  Now pictured with her kids holding weapons designed to kill.

As a Christmas card. Jesus would approve, right?

But this is acceptable in America, and there are people who will choose to use weapons like those above to make sure that everyone else is terrorized into accepting it as normal.

Last Call For Good Enough For The Goose

If Missouri's restrictions on women seeking abortion are a "vital and necessary public safety issue" as Republicans insist, then the same restrictions should apply for purchasing a gun, right?

Missouri State Rep. Stacey Newman (D) has a creative idea for tackling the high rates of gun violence in her state: regulate gun purchases as tightly as abortion services. 

According to St. Louis Magazine, Newman pre-filed a bill this week that would make it just as difficult to buy a deadly weapon in Missouri as it currently it to get an abortion — including imposing a 72-hour waiting period for prospective gun buyers and requiring them to receive information about alternative to guns, like “peaceful and nonviolent conflict resolution.” 

Missouri, which is home to just one clinic that performs abortions, has some of the harshest restrictions on the procedure in the country. Patients must wait three full days before they’re allowed to end a pregnancy and make two separate trips to the state’s lone clinic. 

“It is logical we borrow similar restrictions to lower our horrific gun violence rates,” Newman said in a statement. “If we truly insist that Missouri cares about ‘all life’, then we must take immediate steps to address our major cities rising rates of gun violence.”

This is utterly brilliant, and of course it has no chance of passage, but it quite cleanly illustrates the rank hypocrisy of Republicans when it comes to "choosing life" and the massive stupidity of treating women like they need to have their little stupid minds changed by the state to dissuade them from exercising their constitutional right.

Under Newman’s proposed legislation, prospective gun buyers would be required to jump through multiple hoops before legally obtaining a firearm. 

At least 72 hours before attempting to buy a gun, they would be required to meet with a licensed physician to discuss the risks of gun ownership. After the three day waiting period, they would need to locate a licensed firearm dealer located at least 120 miles from their home, which is the average distance that women currently must travel to get an abortion. 

Before the sale, the buyer would also be required to complete several educational requirements. Newman’s bill stipulates that they must tour an emergency trauma center treating victims of gun violence, meet with at least two families affected by gun violence, and talk to two local faith leaders who have performed funerals for children who have been killed by guns. Then, before walking out of the store with their gun, they would need to watch a 30-minute video in the presence of the firearm dealer that details fatal gun injuries and review information about alternatives to purchasing a firearm.

 I'd love to see a national version of this bill introduced, again, just to make a point, but of course even Democrats fear the NRA more than they fear voters.

Fear And Loathing In Trump Vegas

The Donald notes he gets YOOOOOOOGE poll numbers after terrible things happen, because he's your go-to guy if you need to piss yourself in fear, America!

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Thursday suggested his popularity increases after tragedies, pointing to his rise in polls after last month's Paris terrorist attacks.

Trump made the comment while pushing back on a GOP memo that scrutinizes his White House candidacy and defending his support for certain demographics, such as women, according to CNN. 

"I'm gonna get people jobs and I'm going to protect people. And that's why whenever there's a tragedy, everything goes up, my numbers go way up because we have no strength in this country, we have weak, sad politicians," the billionaire businessman told the network. 

Trump stood at 24.8 percent support in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls on Nov. 13, the day of the deadly attacks in Paris.

He ticked upward in the weeks following the attacks, reaching 27.8 percent support on Nov. 28. 

His comment follows a similar point made by a Twitter supporter, which the celebrity real estate tycoon shared earlier Thursday, that states: "His poll numbers jump every time instances like this occur."

Indeed, the latest CNN poll shows Trump way ahead now at 36% to Ted Cruz's 16%, as Dr. Ben Carson has dropped to 14% along with Rubio.   It's looking more and more like the party of abject fear and loathing wants a master debater like Trump to run things, and they might end up nominating him.

Or maybe they'll destroy him instead.

Donald Trump tapped a man to be a senior business adviser to his real-estate empire even after the man's past involvement in a major Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme had become publicly known, according to Associated Press interviews and a review of court records. 

Portions of Trump's relationship with Felix Sater, a convicted felon and government informant, have been previously known. Trump worked with the company where Sater was an executive, Bayrock Group LLC, after it rented office space from the Trump Organization as early as 2003. Sater's criminal history was effectively unknown to the public at the time, because a judge kept the relevant court records secret and Sater altered his name. When Sater's criminal past and Mafia links came to light in 2007, Trump distanced himself from Sater. 

But less than three years later, Trump renewed his ties with Sater. Sater presented business cards describing himself as a senior adviser to Donald Trump, and he had an office on the same floor as Trump's own office in New York's Trump Tower, The Associated Press learned through interviews and court records.

Trump said during an AP interview on Wednesday that he recalled only bare details of Sater. 

"Felix Sater, boy, I have to even think about it," Trump said, referring questions about Sater to his staff. "I'm not that familiar with him." 

According to Trump lawyer Alan Garten, Sater's role was to prospect for high-end real estate deals for the Trump Organization. The arrangement lasted six months, Garten said.

Which is a big deal because that puts Trump in bed with the mob, and the mob in bed with the Russians.  Which we've known about since 2007, raising questions about if this is the best oppo research that the GOP has on the guy.

I'm not saying he can't win, we know any Republican will get 45% of the vote minimum, even Trump.

But maybe he won't get much more than that.

Jobapalooza: Rate My Economy Edition

Another great jobs report this month, because it's nice to be reminded that under our current "terrible worst president ever" that we've had five and a half straight years of job growth.

Employers added more jobs than forecast in November, underscoring Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s confidence that the U.S. economy is strong enough to withstand higher borrowing costs. 

The 211,000 increase in payrolls followed a 298,000 gain in October that was bigger than previously estimated, a Labor Department report showed Friday. The median forecast called for a 200,000 advance. The jobless rate held at a more than seven-year low of 5 percent. 

A healthy rate of hiring has raised the odds that Fed officials will raise interest rates this month for the first time since 2006. The pace of future increases is contingent on progress toward the central bank’s inflation goal and probably depends on how quickly wage pressures mount as the job market tightens.

“It was a broad-based gain across all sectors, and that’s absolutely essential,” said John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina, whose forecast for payrolls was among the closest. The jobs report “is a bright green signal for the Fed to go ahead and move in December,” and indicates future rate increases should proceed at a “moderate pace.” 

Employee pay increased at a steady pace last month. Average hourly earnings at private employers rose 0.2 percent in November after a 0.4 percent gain. Year-over-year hourly pay rose 2.3 percent after a 2.5 percent gain a month earlier.

Unemployment down, wages up, and it looks like the Fed is finally going to start getting us out of zero percent interest rates.  How much of a rate hike in December, we don't know, but the US economy is now sailing along.

That does mean however that as the Fed slows down the economy a bit, that it could have effects on the 2016 election. Whether or not raising interest rates will be enough cover if job numbers go negative, well that's up to Janet Yellen and crew, right?

We'll see.

StupidiNews!

• As expected, Senate Republicans used budget reconciliation to get the 51 votes needed to defund Obamacare and Planned Parenthood, but the bill is expected to be vetoed.
• Los Angeles County will not prosecute a California Highway Patrol officer seen on video beating a 51-year-ol black woman, calling the violence "legal and necessarily".
• Defense Secretary Ash Carter says the Pentagon will open all military combat roles to women who can qualify for the physical training standards.
• Restaurant industry groups have immediately sued New York City over new sodium warning guidelines for large fast food chains, calling the measure "arbitrary and capricious".
• Several New Jersey cities are demanding an investigation into Verizon, saying the company has neglected to maintain copper landlines in areas where there isn't fiber optic infrastructure.

Last Call For The Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver Express

Just in case the "both parties are the same" folks are still reading ZVTS, here's House Speaker Crossfit Brad Paul Ryan to let us know exactly what a GOP Congress and president will bring us in 2017.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday that Republicans next year will unveil a plan to replace Obamacare in its entirety, as part of a "pro-growth" agenda that he believes should also include cutting welfare programs and taxes. 

Ryan said even if President Barack Obama will not sign them into law in his last year in office, the Republican majority in Congress must produce proposals to demonstrate "what our ideal policy would be looking forward to 2017 and beyond." 

"Put together a positive agenda and take it to the American people," he urged members of his party. The most urgently needed action, Ryan said, was to replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as Obamacare is officially called. 

"Next year, we are going to unveil a plan to replace every word of Obamacare," Ryan said in a speech at the Library of Congress, which his office billed as his first major address as speaker, a job he has held for a little over a month.

Yeah, no difference between the parties, we'll only kick 25 million or so people off health insurance and cut taxes for the wealthy again, because I'm sure with all that extra money they'll invest in raising worker wages, right?

And when like Kansas is showing us, when massive tax cuts fail to magically produce more revenues and we get back to racking up trillion dollar deficits...oh wait, we'll just have to cut trillions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, and that will create "growth".

In graveyards.

You think America is bad now, wait until the real austerity starts under a GOP federal government.

What It Will Take To Win

Playing with 538.com's Swing-O-Matic electoral college calculator is actually very cool, but also pretty sobering.  It doesn't take much of a shift among non-college educated white voters for Republicans to win 2016 walking away.

In 2012 they voted 62% Republican, with a turnout of 57%, and Romney lost 332-206 in the electoral college.  College-educated whites voted for Romney 56% with a turnout of 77%.

If college-educated white voters shifted to the Republicans from 56% to 62% Republican, where non-college educated white voters where in 2012, you're looking at a GOP president.  Florida, Ohio, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Virginia would flip red and Republicans would win 276-262.

If non-college educated whites go from 62% to 67% GOP, Dems also lose.  In that case, Colorado, Wisconsin flip instead of Virginia and they'd win by an even larger margin, 282-256.

Should both happen, it's an absolute wipeout.  Dems would lose those states plus Pennsylvania, Maine, Nevada, and even Oregon and Minnesota.  It would be a 358-180 wipeout.

Black voters would have to turn out at 92% level and vote at Obama's 93% in order to eke out a 270-268 electoral win for the Dems in that case.

On the other hand, should Democrats pick up even slightly more of the white vote, it becomes total carnage for the GOP.  If non-college white voters were split 50-50, Dems would roll to a 404-134 win, and would even win states like South Carolina, Missouri, and Georgia.

So it can go either way, but it doesn't take much.

The Daily Grind

Lost in the noise of OMG MUSLIM TERROISM is the fact the New York Times finds that on average, there's been a mass shooting of four or more people in America every day in 2015.

Including the worst mass shooting of the year, which unfolded horrifically on Wednesday in San Bernardino, Calif., a total of 462 people have died and 1,314 have been wounded in such attacks this year, many of which occurred on streets or in public settings, the databases indicate. 

It is impossible to know whether the number of such shootings has risen in recent years because the databases go back only a couple of years. More data is available for mass shootings calculated by a different standard, one used by congressional researchers and other experts who study mass killings: four or more dead. But experts fiercely debate whether mass shootings by that more deadly standard have remained level or ticked up slightly in recent years. 

Nonetheless, the stream of shootings this year — including an attack last week on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado that left three dead and a shooting in October at a community college in Oregon that left 10 dead, including the gunman — has intensified the debate over the accessibility of powerful firearms. 

Two databases that track mass shootings that leave four or more dead or wounded — shootingtracker.com and gunviolencearchive.org — depend on news accounts and are not official. Nonetheless, they give an indication of the widespread nature of such episodes. Since January, there have been at least 354 such cases in about 220 cities in 47 states, according to shootingtracker.com. 

In November, six people were killed, five of them shot to death at a campsite in East Texas; 17 were wounded in a shootout as a crowd watched the filming of a music video in New Orleans; and four died, including twin 5-month-olds, in an episode of domestic violence in Jacksonville, Fla. So far this week, five people were wounded Sunday morning in a shooting in Kankakee, Ill., and a shooting Wednesday, before the San Bernardino attack, left one woman dead and three men wounded in Savannah, Ga.

This is the cost to water the Tree of Liberty, they tell us. Four or five people killed in a mass shooting, and about 95 per day per year total.

StupidiNews!

• San Bernardino police say 14 are dead, 17 more injured as two suspects went on a rampage at a holiday party for state employees and were later killed by police.
• Florida's Supreme Court has signed off on new congressional districts ahead of the 2016 election after the court found existing districts to be unconstitutionally gerrymandered.
• South African paralympian Oscar Pistorious has been convicted of murder by South Africa's highest court, he was originally convicted of culpable homicide and now faces at least 15 years.
• British warplanes attacked ISIS targets within hours of a British parliament vote authorizing military force against Islamic State targets in Syria yesterday.
• NOAA weather forecasters say this year's El Niño in the Pacific is still gaining strength and could cause record winter warmth across the US.